On the subject of caving in to pro-Palestinian pressure, something unusual appeared in the Independent yesterday. A letter from film director Gary Sinyor, recipient of the award for Best British Film from the EIFF 1992 for his film “Leon the Pig Farmer” (Do read it all)
He explains eloquently why Ken Loach was wrong to threaten the Edinburgh International Film Festival, forcing them to hand back the £300 sponsorship money from Israel…… or else.
“To repress the freedom of a film festival, to blackmail it, because it has accepted £300 from a government body to fly over a film-maker is petty and outrageous.[…..] “to acquiesce to this blackmail is more outrageous still. [……..] “To be seen to give in to extremists is simply not an option.”
Amen to that.
Meanwhile, back at the BBC, they’re still promoting Loach’s latest film.
Caving in to this sort of pressure seems to be the order of the day, and sad to say, the BBC’s twin habits of doing that and vilifying Israel epitomise the downward spiral we’re in.
On the subject of bias, however, contrast the interviews on the Politics Show this morning. Cameron gets the full Downing Street attack dog, Mandelson gets the wheels greased in sickening fashion, and later they chat to the leader of the Labour MEP group, described as ‘one of the most powerful’ MEPs
If that is a thinly disguised appeal for a new open thread, there you go. Done that.
If it alludes to the tenuous link to BBC bias in the above post, I was anticipating that.
I could say “I hold my hands up!” or “It was the right thing to do!”
Take your pick.
Loach is a Marxist. Marxists threaten. That’s what they do to opponents. No surprise there.
Ken Loach joined the BBC in 1963 as a trainee television director. Much of his work, especially his work for television, was created for the BBC. His ‘left’ politics of the type the BBC would identify openly with if only the Charter would let them.
Perhaps silently, when he pressured the Film Festival, the BBC replied, “Hear, Hear”.
And who is amongst the Beeboids promoting the Loach film but the BBC’s Arts correspondent, Ms. Razia Iqbal; and the BBC’s Ms. Razia Iqbal is happy to define herself as a Muslim woman of power, and figures on the UK ‘Muslim Women Power List’,
2009 So is Ms.Razia Iqbal likely to put the case for an Israeli film maker? And does she? No.
Loach’s minor film was just all over BBC breakfast TV.